21 June 2018, Centurion – AFGRI Technology Services (“ATS”), part of AFGRI Group Holdings, is proud to partner with The SA Innovation Summit, an industry-leading annual platform for nurturing, developing and showcasing African innovation, as well as facilitating innovation thought leadership. The Summit will be taking place in Cape Town from 12-14 September.

This is the first year that ATS will be joining organisations such as the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), The Allan Gray Entrepreneurship Challenge, the Southern Africa Network for Biosciences, and Adams and Adams, amongst others, with the City of Cape Town, to support this much-needed platform for innovators, not only in South Africa, but across the continent.

ATS has committed to pioneer the conversation and sponsor the AgTech vertical at the Summit, which will bring together corporates, thought leaders, inventors, entrepreneurs, academia and policy makers to strengthen South Africa’s competitive edge and to inspire sustained economic growth across Africa.

Niki Neumann, the MD of ATS, believes platforms such as these provide a vital springboard for leadership in this space, whether to inspire entrepreneurial start-ups or grow and accelerate organisational innovation culture.

“It is precisely because ATS was born of the desire to advance the development and implementation of AgTech solutions – solutions we believe will help ensure both the future of agriculture and enable food security, not just for Africa, but for the whole world too – that our support of events such as this is vital.

“We believe that enabling a platform for South African entrepreneurs, investors and innovators to connect with the broader AgTech ecosystem will have a positive impact on South Africa. Building the ecosystem will not only benefit our customers and our business, but the industry too. If you enable farming, you enable Africa.”

Neumann adds that AgTech can drastically change the sector as we know it. “We want to build a connected, globally competitive, efficient, inclusive agriculture sector through introducing technology and innovative solutions. AgTech goes beyond on-farm technology, robotics, IOT and sensing – it’s about looking at the sector holistically and bringing together pieces of the puzzle to solve the challenges of financial inclusion, water scarcity, connectivity, food security, increased population growth, the increasing demand for farmers to increase productivity and outputs to meet ever-growing consumption patterns, climate change, enabling smaller farmers access to markets and developing surrounding conditions to enable farmers, for example infrastructure.

“For this reason, we need to think broader, we need to rethink the ordinary. The word is moving faster than we could’ve imagined, there has been no better time to talk about the future of food, agriculture and technology as a single topic – AgTech. At the Summit, we have the unique opportunity to fast-track the conversation.”